FILE – In this July 2009 file photo Colorado Attorney General John Suthers is pictured at a news conference in Denver. Republican incumbent Attorney General John Suthers is being challenged by Democrat Stan Garnett, the Boulder County district attorney in the Nov. 2 election.

A Denver district judge erred by ruling that Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights can’t be considered in deciding whether the state’s school funding system is unconstitutional, Attorney General John Suthers argued today in an appeal of a landmark education funding decision.

Excluding TABOR from the state’s defense of its school funding system was one of several reasons Suthers’ office listed in its appeal of of Denver District Judge Sheila Rappaport’s decision in Lobato vs. Colorado, the school funding case that could have profound implications for the state budget. Suthers’ office filed the appeal of the decision today, directly to the Colorado Supreme Court.

Months earlier before the case went to trial, though, Rappaport ruled the state could not argue that it was complying with the constitution while balancing education against other spending needs and TABOR.

Suthers’ office argued Rappaport erred by excluding evidence that the state must weigh a variety of constitutional mandates including TABOR, which limits state spending and requires a vote of the people for tax hikes; Amendment 23, which mandates higher spending every year on schools; and the Gallagher Amendment, which has shifted the bulk of the burden for funding schools away from local districts and to the state.

But in the appeal, Suthers’ office also cited other ways in which it says Rappaport erred, including precluding the testimony of former state Sen. Norma Anderson, R-Lakewood, about writing the School Finance Act of 1994.

The case at hand, Lobato vs. State of Colorado, was filed in 2005. It originated with a group of parents in the San Luis Valley but expanded to include districts from across the state.

Lawyers for the state argued that the question of how much should be spent on education should be left to the legislature and voters. They also said more money alone is not necessarily the solution to better schools.

The lawsuit doesn’t seek a specified sum of money. However, one consultant hired by plaintiffs estimated the state’s current funding system falls short by as much as $4 billion a year.

The state now spends more than 40 percent, or $3.2 billion in the 2010-11 fiscal year that ended in June, of its almost $7 billion general fund on K-12 schools.

Meanwhile, the current school-finance system would stay in place until the Colorado Supreme Court either makes a final ruling in the case or if defendants or plaintiffs ask Rappaport to revisit the ruling. Rappaport indicated she wanted lawmakers to address the issue, saying the injunction against the state couldn’t be revisited until the end of the 2012 legislative session.

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